Temple Grandin Quotes

My brother was diagnosed with autism at age 2. At the time, I was young, so I didn't really understand what it all meant. The doctors thought there was a possibility my brother wouldn't be able to speak - he was diagnosed on the severe end of the spectrum.

If you have a 2 or 3 year old who is not talking, you must start an early intervention program. The worst thing you can do with an autistic 3 year old is to do nothing.

I've been interested in autism since I've known about it, which is more or less since I've been writing.

Back then, people thought if you could talk you didn't have autism. I was just seen as this slightly odd child. I saw another therapist aged 12, and another in my early 30s.

My son was diagnosed with autism. He's OK, he makes eye contact, but he doesn't talk. He needs eight hours a day of very intensive school, and you wouldn't even believe me if I told you how much it costs.

It's very important for the parents of young autistic children to encourage them to talk, or for those that don't talk, to give them a way of communicating, like a picture board, where they can point to a glass of milk, or a jacket if they're cold, or the bathroom.

Mom worked with autistic children.

We've been blessed with four beautiful children. Michael, he doesn't have much of a problem anymore. He is high functional, probably because of early intervention.

I did want to acknowledge and confirm the fact that my son does, indeed, have an autism diagnosis.

When our son's autism was diagnosed at the age of 2, there was no clear prognosis. We didn't even know if he'd ever learn to talk. But we found talented people to work with him and he improved, slowly at first and then more rapidly.

I've worked with tons of people that I know who are on the spectrum - but now I think severe autism has really increased.

I am much less autistic now, compared to when I was young. I remember some behaviors like picking carpet fuzz and watching spinning plates for hours. I didn't want to be touched. I couldn't shut out background noise. I didn't talk until I was about 4 years old. I screamed. I hummed. But as I grew up, I improved.

The majority of autists - as well as their parents - seem to be genuine victims of environmental stress.

Kids don't talk like adults, but kids on the spectrum don't necessarily fall into the same patterns of speaking or have the same interests as other kids their age.

When you take a drug to treat high blood pressure or diabetes, you have an objective test to measure blood pressure and the amount of sugar in the blood. It is straight-forward. With autism, you are looking for changes in behavior.

Autism is the fastest growing developmental disability in our nation.

What makes autism different is the history of neglect into the disorder. It's remained such a mystery that science has been very slow to address it.

The government is slowly waking up to the scale of the personal tragedy of delayed autism diagnosis.

Autism's a very big spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, Einstein would probably be labeled autistic, Steve Jobs, half of Silicon Valley, you know, Van Gogh. And at the other end of the spectrum, you got much more severe handicaps where they never learn to speak.

If you see a child with autistic-like behaviors at age two and three, the worst thing you can do is just let them sit and watch TV all day. That's just the worst thing you can do. You need to have a teacher working with that child, working on teaching language, working on social interaction, working on getting them interested in different things, and keeping their brain connected to the world.

Autism is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by social withdrawal, by repetitive behaviors and by some kind of focal attention in its classic form. Basically, it's an inability to relate to others.

Relatively many autists are first-born children. There is also a pretty widespread conviction that the parents of autists are somehow different - for instance, many of them are very serious people or people who are themselves under some sort of strain.

One advantage to having a kid on the spectrum: they tend to be rule followers. Socially, things are harder for them than most kids.

What causes autism? As far as we know in 2013, there is no single gene or single environmental factor that accounts for the more than 1 million Americans with ASDs.

I decided to study special education and fell in love with working with individuals with autism. That's what I planned to do with my life.